Hacked Credit Reporting Agencies Leading to Rampant Scams That Drain American Bank Accounts, According to Expert: Report

An executive at one US bank reportedly says that the hacks of credit reporting agencies are fueling rampant scams that drain customers’ accounts.

Chris Zampogna, the senior vice president and security officer for Pennsylvania-based Mid Penn Bank, says that people are being fooled by scammers who know who they bank with by using information they obtain from the dark web, reports NBC10 News in Philadelphia.

“Losses are astronomical because they’re wiping people’s accounts out, because you gave them the keys to the castle.”

The scam begins with a call that appears as if it is coming from the victim’s bank.

“They say they’re with– they know the name of your bank. It’s all out there. This information is all out there. All the different credit reporting agencies over the years, many of them have been hacked.”

The scammers then instill fear by telling the victims there’s suspicious activity detected on their accounts.

“And they’ll call and say, ‘Hey, we’re just calling to talk to you about a couple wires that are in your account. We want to verify that you’re sending them, and that you wanted to send them.’ And you panic because you think, ‘I’m not sending a wire.’ And sure enough, they’ll say, ‘Well, let’s help. Let’s look into that to help you.’”

The scammers then convince the victim to tell them their username, password and the Multi-Factor Authentication.

“And once they have that [information] with a couple clicks of a button they can clean you out.”